It's been busy times around LMH lately, as the ground and its inhabitants begins to come fully awake. The dandelions are out, so the tortoise is quite pleased. The grass is growing, and that means lawn tractor season officially begins this weekend. So does weeding. With all the rain we have had, and all of the standing water around us, it should also be a very miserable mosquito season. Still, not to complain too loudly, as there is a lot of flooding occurring in various parts of Canada right now.
Yesterday was Detroit day, mainly an excursion to hear the DSO perform a concert of music by Vivaldi. The conductor was the Scottish Baroque conductor Nicholas McGegan. 4 works were performed by Vivaldi, and one by a contemporary composer influenced by him. The main work on the program was the Gloria. A 55 person choir and three soloists were accompanied by a small orchestra of about 28 musicians. With the perfect acoustics of Orchestra Hall, it is doubtful if the 30 minute piece ever sounded better. I had the opportunity to sing this piece in university with the U of W choir, more than 40 years ago now!! I sang bass.
Also on the program were two works for mandolin and orchestra. The Concerto for Mandolin and Strings, "Three Sisters," by Anna Clyne, proved a highlight of the concert, with virtuoso mandolin player Avi Avital giving an outstanding performance. The concert will be broadcast live on Saturday night at 8 pm EDT. It will be fun to hear it all again.
Nearly time to begin the 2nd half of the concert at Orchestra Hall, Detroit. The main work was the Vivaldi "Gloria."
Now on to the asbestos part of our program. We have some in the garage, and a company came to take a look at it and give a removal estimate. Fine. We were expecting that. Then he went downstairs to check on another problem, and he discovered that our crumbling floor tiles are actually also made from asbestos. That was a shock. We are now looking at a price tag of around $5,000.00. Good thing we didn't want to travel this year anyway. But that still isn't the biggest part of the problem. No. In order to remove the asbestos, we have to have everything out of the basement and moved into the garage. So we will also have to hire a moving company to come and empty our basement, and then put everything back again afterwards. I do not yet know the cost of that project.
In other news, Deb finally gets to see her shoulder specialist on Monday. We should have a much better idea then if surgery is needed and/or profitable, and a rough time line as to when that might take place. She injured it in 2015, so the damage is likely permanent at this stage. We shall see.
We also attended a funeral memorial service last week. Dave Upcott's wife Connie passed away from cancer. Dave was a close friend and colleague at APS. There was a significant turnout for him, including several former students. Dave gave the main talk, and held it together during his very moving and often times humourous speech.
Mapman Mike
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